


When Darkness is All You See

by TheGirlWithThePuffHat



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amazing How Fire Exposes Our Priorities, Crying, Crying Crowley (Good Omens), Finley Cannot Tag, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I don’t know what else to say, Inspired By Tumblr, Inspired by Fanart, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Scene: The Bookshop Fire (Good Omens), Short One Shot, THEY BE KISSING MY DUDES, THEYRE SAPPY DORKS, answer: no im not, as in Crowley actually gets there before Aziraphale discorporates, dance dance we’re falling apart, emphasis on falling apart because hooooo boy, guess who loves crowley being a sad baby, im not okay (I promise), its a whole thing, just read it, me that’s who, no beta we saunter vaguely downward like crowley, rated T cause Crowley says the fuck word, the random fireman from the burning bookshop scene, this is literally a fic of crowley running into the bookshop and snogging aziraphale’s halo dark, tumblr tags are different from ao3 tags and I am dISORIENTED, what do you want me to say, yall: fin are you ok, yeah hes here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27639739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGirlWithThePuffHat/pseuds/TheGirlWithThePuffHat
Summary: Inspired by @rurouniidoru’s art on tumblr!!!!!!!!!!!! If links work, it is linked in the notes.In which Crowley hits Hastur with the holy water too and manages to get out of his flat a little bit faster, and in which Aziraphale’s body does not vanish forever when he steps into the portal.Or, to quote Sherlock: Amazing how fire exposes our priorities….
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62





	When Darkness is All You See

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya!! I suppose it’s time I took a break from my game of “How Many Times Can Finley Draw David Tennant Before They Go Insane” (220-something so far) and wrote a little fic! I saw this: https://rurouniidoru.tumblr.com/post/632984900728979456/rackets-13-days-of-halloween-day-7-bonfire wonderful art by @rurouniidoru on tumblr and got inspired! (Help I don’t know how links work—) (go check out the art though it’s awesome) (a quick copy and paste should work)
> 
> Title, although not the most relevant, is from Sweet Blasphemy by Black Veil Brides. 
> 
> —  
> We are young and we are strong  
> Through strength and self we become  
> Something more than they can be  
> I’ll raise my heart and say  
> That I won’t believe this lie  
> I know there’s something more inside  
> When darkness is all you see  
> This is our sweet blasphemy  
>  —Sweet Blasphemy by Black Veil Brides  
> —
> 
> Happy reading!!!!!

The bucket fell. 

Ligur screamed, crumbling to the same kind of dust that refused to settle in Crowley’s soul, and although Crowley had been  _ hoping _ it would also hit Hastur, he definitely wasn’t  _ expecting _ it to hit Hastur, so when it  _ did, _ he stood in shock, holding his plant mister numbly by his side. He’d been preparing a bluff in his head, one that involved him appearing cool and also strongly relied on the notion that whichever demon survived wouldn’t realize there wasn’t any holy water in the spray bottle, but he didn’t have all of the details worked out yet, so when the bucket fell and both Dukes disintegrated, he wasn’t entirely sure whether he ought to be elated that he didn’t have to fight them or disappointed that he didn’t get the chance to trick them. Oh well. The bucket-on-the-door trick  _ had _ been pretty funny.

“Aziraphale,” he said aloud, remembering the phone call. He picked up the phone and called the angel back quickly, but he didn’t pick up. Crowley cursed, rather more aggressively than was necessary, and hurdled the holy-water-demon-goo in the doorway on his way out. “You’d better not have, I dunno, discorporated or anything.”

He got into the Bentley and sped off. “Here I am, running off to save you,” he grumbled aloud to no one. “‘Course I am. Always do. That’s me, a demon so hopelessly taken by an angel I gotta drop everything and go save him. ‘Course I do. If there’s one thing certain in my life, ‘s that I’m living for that  _ blessed angel.” _

Crowley, when he was nervous, tended to talk to himself. Specifically berate himself. Because he’d always been told he was wrong, he wasn’t good enough (or, well,  _ bad _ enough in this case), he had to be different; the only thing he was certain of at this point was that he loved Aziraphale. Because nobody could ever convince him he didn’t. He’d loved the angel since the day he’d met him (Before the Fall didn’t count; Crowley could hardly call the cold whiteness and the vague memory of a familiar face  _ love, _ could he? That was too impersonal to be love), when Aziraphale had burned with anxiety and then relaxed in the rain. 

Aziraphale had always done things slowly. He savored things, like they were delicious, and oh, how Crowley loved to watch, but even in those slow moments, his heart (he supposed it was a heart. He’d read something about humans getting a jittery feeling in one of their internal organs and had figured his body ought to do that too. Now he was regretting that) would race, and Aziraphale’s words from 1967 would rush back into his head, ironically enough, faster than perhaps anything else about him. 

He slammed around a corner and felt his heart try to claw its way up his throat. The Bentley’s cheery tune of  _ oh, you’re my best friend _ stopped abruptly, and became  _ I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all, _ which was close to how Crowley felt as he tripped over his metaphorical shoelaces in his haste to enter the burning bookshop.

Now, you might be a bit confused, because practically everyone else was, including but not limited to: Shadwell, Aziraphale, Crowley (although Crowley was far more terrified than confused), and the vast majority of the Londoners outside. Let’s back up a little while and see what happened with Aziraphale, yes? Okay.

* * *

It was sunny outside, which shouldn’t have bothered Aziraphale as much as it did. How fitting, he thought, that humanity truly began in the rain, and now it would end on a beautiful day, when really they should be outside enjoying themselves, maybe with a picnic lunch or a bottle of wine or their favorite demon, who perhaps they hadn’t seen for a while and were beginning to miss quite dreadfully. 

Oh, now he was getting distracted again. He’d meant to be talking to someone Up Above about the Antichrist, and perhaps get them to stop the war; it wasn’t so much that Aziraphale would miss any humans in particular (he and Crowley had discussed at length how evil humanity could be), but rather that he would grieve the potential they had if it was obliterated. And he was also terrified of the idea of one of the angels killing Crowley, or worse, having to face Crowley himself. He wouldn’t be able to hurt the demon, no matter how much Gabriel wanted him to.

He was getting even more off-track with every passing moment, and by now he wasn’t sure if he was stalling or not. He lit the candles and took a deep breath, and glanced over to his left as if he’d forgotten Crowley wasn’t there. A light filled the bookshop, a light that could have been called heavenly but was really just searingly bright, and Aziraphale proceeded to converse with someone who was likely the Voice of God in the same way Beelzebub was the voice of Satan. The Crowley-shaped vacancy at his left side grew colder and colder with every passing second, along with the cold of the certainty that Heaven wasn’t going to listen to him. 

The light dimmed slightly as the Metatron retreated, and Aziraphale breathed a sigh, but the lapse of relief was snatched away again by the realization that there was a human in the bookshop, yelling at him about seducing women. Aziraphale frowned. Had he not had eyes for only Crowley for too many years to count, still he would’ve looked to men before he looked to women, and, well, even still the idea of the particular activities humans tended to get up to in such relationships had always slightly repulsed him. 

He told the human that perhaps he had the wrong shop, but it wasn’t a helpful suggestion, and both of them knew it. And then the human tried to  _ exorcise _ him, which Aziraphale might’ve found funny in the sheer irony of it all had the circumstances been different, but  _ really, _ the human shouldn’t be in the bookshop at all! He stepped forward, trying to get a word in, but the man forced him to back up, brandishing a lighter and  _ The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter: _ two things Aziraphale did  _ not _ want close to each other, not one bit. 

This was all to say that Aziraphale, after stepping on the portal and exclaiming  _ “oh, fuck” _ out loud, was not transported through the gateway to Heaven. You heard me right: he was not. Instead, he found himself trapped  _ within _ the circle, far too similarly to the way Crowley had been trapped in his kitchen after dropping a salt shaker and spreading salt all around him (he’d called Aziraphale to come break the circle, and had made him vow never to speak of it again). 

He and Shadwell gaped at each other.

“My dear boy,” he began, but Shadwell fled the shop at once, hollering about his index finger and demons and southern pansies all at once, which Aziraphale thought was rather unnecessary; all Shadwell had needed to do was put out one candle, and Aziraphale would’ve been fine, but no. No, of course not. Humans always made things difficult, he figured, frowning, and began to pace around the circle. There was nothing inside it, and he couldn’t even reach his arms outside the light. He looked up, into the endless blue light of the portal. 

“Why can’t I get through?” he muttered to himself. “The Metatron said he’d leave the portal open while I dealt with things down here.” He glanced upwards again, but with less hope this time; to an onlooker it may have appeared that he was rolling his eyes. “If I could only reach Crowley….”

It might’ve concerned Gabriel to know how quickly Aziraphale gave up on the idea of helping, and getting help from, Heaven. If Gabriel’s plan had been for Aziraphale to ask someone to open the portal back up, then he would’ve been disappointed. But Aziraphale was decidedly not disappointed; he’d grown used to Heaven ignoring him, and had cared less and less over the years. Heaven had never been there for him, but Crowley had. Every single time. Which was precisely why Aziraphale wasn’t too worried—he knew Crowley would be on his way soon enough, and they could get to the airbase and hopefully stop Armageddon. 

It wasn’t until he smelled smoke that he realized Shadwell’s hurried exit had knocked over a candle, and said candle had set the bookshop aflame. Aziraphale, in a panic, tried once again to exit the glowing circle, but realized that the candle was still alight, so he was still trapped. He contemplated cursing for the third time in his life, but decided in the end that it wasn’t worth it. 

Smoke poured out the windows, and Aziraphale could hear sirens screaming outside, but he couldn’t see much of anything besides the rolling coils of black smoke and the hungry tongues of fire. Had he needed to breathe, he would’ve suffocated long ago, but now it was all he could do to remain standing while the world—his books, centuries worth of knowledge and memories—ended in fire and flame.

The blue light grew unbearably bright. Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut and wondered if the sudden weight pressing down on him was metaphorical or from the portal’s Heavenly energy, almost as though it was pushing him down, towards Hell… but no, he wasn’t going to think about that. 

_ “Do I  _ look _ like I run a bookshop?” _ The angry shout came from outside, and Aziraphale turned toward it despite not being able to see; blindly yearning, the way he’d been doing for so many years it had become painful, for the darkness to part; and then, as it would always do, the darkness parted, and there was Crowley, as though he had been there all along. Aziraphale could’ve kissed him. Well. Disregarding the fact that he’d’ve kissed him in 41, or in 108, or in 537, or in 1001, or 1410, or 1601, or 1717, or 1793, or 1862, or in 1941 (and  _ goodness, _ how he’d wanted to kiss Crowley in 1941), or 1967, or 1999, or, well—you get the idea. 

“Angel,” Crowley said, breathlessly, then:  _ “ANGEL!?” _

_ Oh, _ Aziraphale realized.  _ He can’t see me. _ “Crowley,” he managed, in a similar tone to the one he’d taken in the Bastille. “Crowley, I’m over here!”

“Angel, where are you?  _ I can’t find you!” _ Aziraphale wasn’t sure whether to be touched or shaken by the raw panic in Crowley’s voice. He watched Crowley pivot on his heels, looking wildly around, and then a blast of water knocked him down and out of sight. Aziraphale strained his neck, but couldn’t see the demon

“I’m trapped in my Heaven circle,” he explained, and Crowley loomed out of the smoke, face streaked by soot and tears, sunglasses gone, hair a mess, and altogether the most beautiful thing Aziraphale had ever seen. 

“Ironic,” the demon chuckled wetly, and swallowed thickly. “Trapped by Heaven, angel?” He wiped his face with his sleeve. “‘N I suppose you need me to come ‘n save you?”

“Oh yes,” Aziraphale said, smiling sweetly. “If it isn’t too much trouble, that is. Be a dear and put out one of the candles?”

“Bastards,” Crowley choked out, voice shaking as though he would begin sobbing at any minute. “Thought they’d killed you. Thought I’d never— _ fucking bastards—” _ he stopped, put out one of the candles with his fingers, and grabbed Aziraphale’s wrists, then second-guessed himself and loosened his grip. “I thought—  _ fuck, _ angel—oh, G- Sa- ngk,  _ Somebody, _ I—I—oh, I’m fucking this all up—”

“My dear, are you alright?” Aziraphale knew the answer, but he had to ask. Crowley looked him in the eyes, lip wobbling, his pupils dilated and the golden-yellow iris expanded so far into the whites of his eyes, it was almost like his eyes didn’t have whites at all. 

“No,” Crowley breathed, as though realizing a great truth of the universe. Then he seemed to collect himself. “No, angel, we’re standing in a burning bookshop— _ your _ bookshop, which is  _ burning _ , n’ the world is literally  _ ending, _ n’ I thought I’d lost you forever, n’ I never even got to kiss you, and you have the  _ audacity _ to ask me if ’m  _ alright?” _

Aziraphale gaped at him. 

“What did you say?”

Crowley looked confused for a second, before his eyes took on the look of dawning horror. He looked between Aziraphale and something beyond, as if contemplating covering up what they both knew he’d said.

“Fuck,” he mumbled. “Uh. Angel, I’d… I… that is to say,  _ nhhng— _ I would. Um. Like to kiss you. Actually. Like to very much. Kiss you, that is. Would very much like to kiss you. Have for a while. Have for as long as I can remember. Like to now. If. Yaknow. If you’re—if—if it’s… not…. too fast—”

Crowley may have continued to stammer for the next six thousand years, if Aziraphale hadn’t grabbed him by the lapels and mashed their mouths together. And the bookshop may have ceased burning, for it could not compare to the fire with which Crowley clutched Aziraphale closer; each scorching slide of their lips a promise, a promise that did not have words, and wasn’t promising anything in particular, but a promise nonetheless. Lips and tongues formed words (or they would have, had they not been otherwise occupied) that said  _ I will be with you when all the walls come down. _

And speaking of walls coming down, Aziraphale realized belatedly, after Crowley’s hands had gripped his shoulders and his waist, and after Crowley had so thoroughly undone him with his hot thin lips and his muffled desperate whines, they probably ought to get out of the bookshop. He tried to pull away from the demon, to resist the temptation to keep snogging him as furiously as a star became a supernova, and found that he couldn’t. An Oscar Wilde quote about yielding to temptations knocked on his consciousness, but he didn’t answer the door. 

They separated with a wet smacking sound and Crowley breathed in deeply. Or, he tried to, but choked on what was either a sob or the smoke.

“Angel, I—”

“I know, dearest,” Aziraphale assured him softly, and was about to suggest they leave the bookshop when Crowley yanked him back in. And so Aziraphale grabbed him by the waist, and they kissed like the world was ending (which it was, but neither minded as much as they had yesterday). He stepped forward, and Crowley, unbalanced, toppled onto the floor, dragging Aziraphale down with him. He really saw no reason to complain about this development, and rather greedily absorbed everything about Crowley: the way he shivered when Aziraphale curled his fingers into his hair, the way his chest hitched, the way he involuntarily whined into Aziraphale’s mouth and the way his limbs were everywhere, arms and legs seemingly reverting to their snakelike nature and twisting Aziraphale up tightly inside Crowley’s embrace. Had he been capable of coherent thought, he may have decided he wouldn’t mind staying here forever, with his body pressed ever so perfectly to Crowley’s, on the floor of his bookshop… the same bookshop that  _ was currently burni— _

“There’s no point,” a muffled voice said, and footsteps neared the circle. “He just ran in. It’s been too long. There’s no way he’s— oh. Uh, right then… excuse me, gentlemen, sorry to interrupt an intimate moment, but  _ you’re in a burning building.” _

Aziraphale put his hands on either side of Crowley’s head and pushed himself up to stare in horror at the fireman.

“Hadn’t noticed,” Crowley grumbled, and pulled Aziraphale down again, his mouth working relentlessly against the angel’s own. 

“Come on,” the firefighter said, and made an attempt to pull them apart. “There’ll be plenty of time for this later, I dunno, when you  _ aren’t _ in danger of dying in a burning building?”

“Heh, dying,” Crowley chortled, but allowed Aziraphale to stand and help him to his feet, and stumbled as they made their way to the door. Aziraphale scooped up The Nice and Accurate Prophecies on the way out. The fireman walked behind them, hurrying them outside, and once they were free of the flames and smoke, once the cool night air washed over them, Crowley hugged Aziraphale so tightly, he felt ten times as enclosed as he’d been in his Heaven circle, but somehow not trapped at all. 

“I don’t ever wanna lose you like that again,” Crowley breathed, voice ragged, lips brushing Aziraphale’s ear. “I thought you were gone. I thought…” he took a deep inhale he didn’t need and kissed under Aziraphale’s jaw. “Thought I lost my best friend. Or. My… my angel. Yeah. Whatever you are, I thought I lost you, ‘n I never wanna think that. Ever.”

“Oh, my dear darling Crowley,” Aziraphale sighed, cupped his demon’s sharp face in his soft hands, and stroked his thumbs under his eyes to wipe away the lingering tears. This action only caused Crowley to break down again, and then Aziraphale found himself being ushered into the Bentley and thoroughly kissed before Crowley was even fully in his seat. 

“I love you,” Crowley gasped out. “Oh my God, I love you. I don’t think there has been a time in the universe that has existed without me loving you.”

“What about before we existed?” Aziraphale wondered, cuddling his demon’s head under his chin.

“Loved you then, too. The universe that would become me loved the universe that would become you.”

Aziraphale was already fighting back tears when Crowley continued, oblivious.

“I wouldn’t know who I was if I didn’t love you.”

Aziraphale tightened his hold on Crowley and cried. “Oh, Crowley, I would not know myself if I did not have you. I love you so very much.”

Crowley’s shoulders shook. “Angel, you’re gonna make me discorporate from icky feelings,” he whined, but his response to Aziraphale tugging him up for a kiss was enthusiastic. 

“Where are we going, then?” he asked breathlessly when they separated. 

“Tadfield,” Aziraphale answered. “The airbase.” He leaned back in his seat, resting his head on the back, and enjoyed the lingering fiery taste of Crowley on his lips. He didn’t complain about Crowley’s driving the whole way to Tadfield (even if he did scream a bit when they drove through the fire, but that was to be expected).

* * *

Two firemen, standing by the bookshop and watching the two odd men stumble outside, into a car that looked too old to be real and proceed to make out for several minutes, did not know what to say. They had the sense that perhaps they’d witnessed something not quite right, but between the fire and the sirens and the dramatics of the red-haired man, they couldn’t place it. 

“So… what happened, in there?” one said to the other. “When you ran in to see what had happened to that bloke?”

The other fireman shrugged. “I think one of us got him with a hose early on, but he didn’t come back out, of course, so I went in, and he and the blond guy were just snogging on the floor! Like the entire place wasn’t burning down! So I said, I said, they ought to go and snog somewhere else, where they wouldn’t burn to death, yeah? Well, I didn’t say it exactly like that, I don’t think, but you get the idea. Anyway, they got their arms all around each other and kinda walked, kinda stumbled to the door and. You saw the rest, mate. Just, they didn’t seem to have any burn marks or anything on any of their clothes or anything.”

“Odd, sure,” said the first man. “Was the blond guy in there when we got here?”

“I don’t…” the second man paused. “No. No, he wasn’t. At least I didn’t see him.”

“Odd,” the first man said again.

“Odd indeed,” agreed the second, and they gazed off into the distance together.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Lemme know what you think? (I love comments and kudos). Find me on tumblr @thegirlwiththepuffhat :)


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